Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar…j/k it’s definitely a penis.

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One thing I love about social work is that it combines so many different professions. We study psychology, sociology, child development social policy, community organizing (Republicans taught me that’s not a real job!) amongst other things. The goal is to work with the whole person.

In theater of the absurd social work school, therefore, one of the things we have to study is Freud. I don’t pretend to be an expert. I realize he had a lot of revolutionary ideas and had a huge impact, and knew more than I do. But I also realize that his views reflected the prejudices of the Victorian age. Plus, he did a ton of blow and was obsessed with the sex.

Some social workers put a bit more stock in classical psychology than I do. Translation: nothing is ever what it seems. Everything is complicated, and people certainly do not say what they mean.

This got me into a bit of a debate with a casework professor. She was explaining that we need to get to the meaning behind what everyone is saying. I don’t disagree with that. But I was told that, when someone comes to me saying they need concrete services because they are about to be evicted, I shouldn’t just refer them to a program. They don’t just want money. There’s something else behind them seeking me out. I need to engage them in conversation about how they feel about the impending eviction.

I think the response might be something along the lines of, “How the fuck do you think I feel about it? Pay my damn rent, crazy!” I’m just guessing here.

I was really unable to hold my tongue when she told us that little kids who we see for counseling might want to take toys from our offices. Makes sense, that’s what kids do.

No. They want to take the toy as a transitional object, to comfort them as they leave the safe environment of the office.

I’m not saying this is never true. Some kids will do this. But I have some badass toys. Might the kid not just be a little jealous of my sweet collection?

Apparently this was not possible.

“What if I’m seeing a kid, and I have the one Power Ranger action figure he’s missing, so he keeps trying to snag it?”
“That action figure has some meaning for him.”
“Yeah…it completes the set.”
“No, beyond that.”

It’s always beyond that.

I recently had a four year old girl in my office, and we broke out the family play figures. She told me, “I don’t know how to play family.”

Brilliant insight from this child! Her home is broken, and she is expressing this through the natural childhood language of play!

Or her mom has the TV running at all times, and the kid hasn’t developed much of an imagination.

Of course we need to read into what our clients are doing. It’s what we do. And people don’t always say exactly what they mean, or express exactly how they are feeling. Sometimes they don’t know. At the same time, I’d like to avoid pathologizing a kid because he has his eye on the slinky on my desk. (Side not: I guard that thing with my life, so don’t even try it.)

During a play therapy session with a little boy recently, he made a scary monster out of play-doh, and gave the monster a name.

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4 responses

I have such complicated feelings about this. I’m a big Freud fan and I think it’s totally valuable to encourage social work students not to take everything their clients say at face value but, yeah, there’s a tendency to go right round the bend with it. It’s a tough balance to find, I guess. My supervisor for 2nd year placement was so reflexive about assuming not just that people’s meanings were complex but that everything was always the opposite of what it appeared to be…if I said my client seemed angry with me she could be counted on without fail to say “well…it seems like someone is angry with someone.” I started to wonder what would happen if I had a DV case. “Well…it seems like someone is hitting someone.”

It’s definitely complicated. There are times that a client is getting very upset about something completely mundane. You know it’s really about something else, but they deny it because they aren’t ready to admit it yet. And we don’t want to be superficial. Especially with kids’ drawings and other art, because of course that’s how they communicate what they can’t say. I just think it goes a little far sometimes, especially in school. I think of weird things I did as a little kid–some were probably in reaction to some event, and some were just because I was five, and therefor a little nuts.

YES! I’ve been looking for another social work blog with a sense of humor. I’ve been trying to write funnier blogs but i’ve found it hard to do it in a way that won’t make me sound like a dick.

In regards to over-analyzing everything, I find that people do that so much with kids. I work a lot with teens and some of the foster parents say stuff like “She’s just out of control. I should get a special rate because she argues constantly and her room is really messy” I’m always like “really? um…and how is that different than any other teenager?”.

Thank you so much! I try to avoid coming across as a dick, but it’s always a concern. It’s hard to find a balance between being humorous and making it clear that you care about your clients. I think we can all benefit from a little more humor in our work.